This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.
Ukraine said its military struck three long-range artillery guns supplied to Russia by North Korea, underlining the extent of the authoritarian Asian nation’s involvement in Russian efforts to defeat the Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kursk.
The Ukrainian military said Wednesday that an aerial reconnaissance unit from the 14th Separate Drone Regiment identified the M-1978 howitzers hidden among trees and coordinated fire from Ukrainian rocket artillery.
“The M-1978 Koksan self-propelled artillery system is North Korea’s longest-range tubed artillery. Equipped with a 170mm gun, it has a range of up to 60 kilometers,” the unit said on its official Telegram channel.
“The system was originally designed with the capability to strike Seoul from the north of the demilitarized zone. Now, the Russian Armed Forces are using it in the war against Ukraine to offset their artillery losses,” it said.
As many as 12,000 North Korean soldiers are in Russia to fight Ukrainian forces who occupied parts of Kursk in an August counterattack, according to the U.S. and Ukraine. Neither Pyongyang nor Moscow has acknowledged their presence.
Evidence also has mounted that impoverished North Korea has supplied weaponry to Russia, likely to offset Russian artillery losses.
In February, Ukraine reported that its drone squad struck a North Korean self-propelled howitzer in the Luhansk region of Ukraine.
The Khortytsia, or east, group of forces said it was the first time since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 that a “very rare” North Korean M-1978 Koksan howitzer had been hit by a Ukrainian drone.
A troop formation with North Korean equipment was spotted in Russia’s Tyumen region in December. It had 10 modernized Koksan howitzers known as the M-1989.
South Korea said in October that the North had sent about 7,000 containers of weapons to Russia over the previous two months, bringing the total number of containers at that point to 20,000.
The Washington Post this week cited Ukrainian soldiers and officials as saying that a fresh influx of North Korean troops along with air superiority, and overwhelming numerical advantage enabled Russia to recapture the town of Sudzha last week, Ukraine’s final stronghold in Kursk.
The heavy reliance on North Korean forces and equipment to reclaim nearly the entire Kursk region after seven months of Ukrainian control highlights the Kremlin’s determination to regain lost territory at any cost, the newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Since the signing of a mutual defense treaty in Pyongyang in June, North Korea and Russia have deepened relations across various sectors.
A Russian delegation, led by Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko, visited North Korea last week, holding meetings with North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui and Vice Foreign Minister Kim Jong Gyu.
The North’s state media did not provide details, but the two sides were expected to discuss defense matters related to North Korea’s troop deployment to Russia amid a U.S.-proposed ceasefire for the war.
